"All the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and . . . the State should be abolished." —Benjamin Tucker

"You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." —James Madison

"Fat chance." —Sheldon Richman

Available Now! (click cover)

America's Counter-Revolution

The Constitution Revisited

From the back cover:

This book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, Sheldon Richman argues, it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire. Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis, Richman suggests that this counter-revolution was the work of conservatives who sought a nation of “power, consequence, and grandeur.” America’s Counter-Revolution makes a persuasive case that the Constitution was a victory not for liberty but for the agendas and interests of a militaristic, aristocratic, privilege-seeking ruling class.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

1. Killing one or many innocents, regardless of one's grievances, is monstrous. This elementary principle would seem to apply to George Bush, and now Barack Obama, as much as to Osama bin Laden. Can someone say why it doesn't?

2. Despite all its guarantees -- contrary to its ideological justification for existing -- the state can't protect us -- even from a ragtag group of hijackers. Trillions of dollars spent over many years built a "national security apparatus" that could not stop attacks on the two most prominent buildings in the most prominent city in the country -- or its own headquarters. That says a lot. No. That says it all. The state is a fraud. We have been duped.

3. The shameless state will stop at nothing to keep people's support by scaring the hell out of them. (Robert Higgs writes about this.) That people take its claims about "why they hate us" seriously after 9/11 shows what the public schools and the mass media are capable of doing to people. But the people are not absolved of responsibility: they could think their way out of this if they cared to make the effort.

4. Blowback is real. Foreign-policy makers never think how their decisions will harm Americans, much less others. They never wonder how their actions will look to their targets. That's because they are state employees.

5. As Randolph Bourne said, getting into a war is like riding a wild elephant. You may think you are in control -- you may believe your objectives and only your objectives are what count. If so, you are deluded. Consider the tens of thousands of dead and maimed Iraqi and Afghanis. What did they have to do with 9/11?

6. No one likes an occupying power.

7. Victims of foreign intervention don't forget, even if the perpetrators and their subjects do.

8. Terrorism is not an enemy. It's a tactic, one used by many different kinds of people in causes of varying moral hues, often against far stronger imperial powers. Declaring all those people one's enemy is criminally reckless. But it's a damn good way for a government to achieve potentially total power over its subjects.

9. They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe, maybe not. But it seems abundantly clear that the enemy of my friend is also likely to be my enemy. See the U.S.-Israel relationship for details.

3 comments:

Wow, Sheldon, Bravo! THIS is why I read online! Such sharp MORAL, correct thinking! Easy to understand, just WHY can't newspapers provide such articles?I NEVER get such great writing for my local paper, the Worcester,MA Telegram, why do I pay them for a subscription?Keep up the GREAT work!

"Assume your government is lying". OK. It was proved about wmd's,katrina,torture, etc, etc, etc. THEN WHY DO YOU ACCEPT THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE ABOUT 911?????? Geez, it's not like we don't have the web.

I don't think that not thinking it was a government plot and not accepting the official narrative about 911 are the same thing. One can think that the government covered up its own incompetence and still accept that the plot was planned and executed by Al Qaida.

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Unless otherwise noted, to the extent possible under law, Sheldon Richman has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to all original content on the Free Association blog, through the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. This work is published from: United States.

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